As It was Before
by Hermia S
Summary: There was much left unsaid between Lady Hawke and her lover. At first, they both considered this a blessing, but as the years passed and his plot took form, it proved to be the opposite.


**A/N: **Nnnnngh, I'm loving this game. Ahem. Anyway! This is my first 'legitimate' piece of DA2 fiction. I'm still playing through it a second time, so I don't see anything big in the near future. Once I'm done with this run and can begin my second, "perfect" run with my main Hawke, I'll probably kick up a fic. Actually, no, I _will_ kick up a fic. I already have it planned out, so fans of Fenris should keep an eye out for it in the near future! Until then, here have this Anders/f!Hawke oneshot. Enjoy!

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"... Hayden?"

A dark-haired head poked into the main room of the Amell estate, eyes flicking from the fireplace to the stairwell before finally resting on Sandal and Bodahn. The latter acknowledged her curiosity with a little laugh. "With Anders, messere," he said, hands clasped behind his back as he rocked onto the balls of his feet. "In your bed chamber."

Sighing to herself - though whatever annoyance was laced with a chuckle and an affectionate smile in the corner of her mouth - Elena pulled herself back into the library. She wasn't accustomed to not having her loyal mabari companion resting near her feet as she picked through the heaps of books left by her family... and the host of slavers who'd lived in the Amell estate not long before. While the former kept books on history and religion, tomes upon tomes about the Free Marches and the Chantry and the history of Thedas, the slavers had quite different tastes; bawdy enough to make Sebastian's skin heat up and fresh enough to whet even Isabela's appetite.

Today, the subject at hand had been herbology. She'd been finding more than usual in her travels due to a helpful bit of weather in the last year, and while she pawned off most of them to Elegant, she had some left over. Even if she ended up making nothing more than green, smelly mash not fit to scour a bowl, it was still something to do in her free time. Not that she had much of it anyway.

She shut the book with a _thump_ and a little puff of dust, setting it on her desk. Maker knew what Anders was doing with her pup in the bedroom. Ever since the Carta had made off with his cat, he'd gotten even closer to the big, slobbering beast. It was cute. But messy. Very, very messy, and they were in her bedroom.

Passing her hands over the silk belt of her jacket, she made her way up the stairwell. She wasn't less than three yards away from the door when she heard a loud bark and the sound of four paws hitting the floor. "Good boy," she murmured to herself, grinning almost triumphantly as she opened the door to find her pet standing right in front of her and Anders lying horizontally on her bed with the saddest little look on his face.

"He was just starting to get comfortable," he said, head falling dejectedly against his bent arm before stroking his other hand over the end of the bed. "And you went and got within a hundred yards of the place. It's _creepy_."

Elena's eyes moved up to him from where she was squatted down in the doorway, large hands smoothing over Hayden's ears to scratch at the back of his head. "It's a mabari thing. You should know that. You said the Warden had a mabari."

The corner of Anders' mouth hitched up in a tiny smile. "Yeah, nothing like yours, though. And _she_ let hers sleep in the bed."

"Ew," she replied, laughing outright at the mabari's whine of disapproval. Leaning back to look at his pathetic expression, ears laid down almost flat against his head, she gave his muzzle an obviously hesitant kiss, making sure to avoid any lingering unpleasantness. "I love you and all, but you're _not_ sleeping with me. Anders is lucky _he_ gets to sleep with me."

"_He-ey_."

Pulling herself up onto her feet, she gave the mabari a pat on the head before shooing him out of the door and shutting it behind him. "Yes, my dearest, darlingest mage?" she asked. The treacley tone in her voice was betrayed by the almost sly smile on her mouth as she crossed the fire-lit room to climb up onto the bed in front of him.

He turned onto his back, uttering a quiet little surprised noise when she curled an arm around his waist and pulled him over closer to her. Tilting in until her forehead was nearly pressed up against his, her nose nuzzled into his cheek. "Don't get all pouty, I was just teasing."

"I'm not pouty," he countered simply, voice light and quiet and affectionate. "I was just keeping the bed warm, is all."

"Oooh, were you?"

Anders chuckled. "Yes, I was." Leaning up, his lips moved over her jaw as his hand slipped between them, fingers teasing at the belt of her jacket. "What? Are you surprised?"

"I'm going to ignore the fact that you thought having my _dog_ warm the bed was a good idea," she whispered, heart already thrumming the vein in her throat, skin heating as she heard him laugh again and his tongue flicked out over her skin. "Because it kind of smells like mabari now. I'll concentrate instead on the matter at hand. And you. And -" She trailed off in a murmur when he somehow managed to weasel his way beneath the fabric, calloused fingers running beneath her navel. A smile quirked at her parted lips. "_And_ your hands."

"You should have brought me with you today," he told her, digging the back of his head into the bed until he was far enough away from her to see her face. His dark eyes found her light, colorless ones. "You know I don't like you going out without a healer."

Elena's brow wrinkled as she climbed on top of him, straddling his thighs. The tiny crease smoothed away as her hands slid beneath his shirt and smiled thankfully at the article of clothing. Getting him naked was _so_ much easier when he wasn't in his robes; and this way she could distract him easily from whatever he'd wanted to talk about. "I can patch myself up well enough," she murmured, her blunt nails scratching over the waist of his trousers before walking up over his soft stomach. "There were templars involved. I didn't want you to be there."

He tensed noticeably at the word before grasping at her wrists. "I still should have been there. You left with a pack full of bandages and poultices and everything under the sun, and it was almost _empty_ when you returned."

"And I'm fine now, aren't I?"

"You were after I healed you," he murmured, his grip on her not loosening, Instead, he moved her hands away from his stomach, confliction riddling his features along with the flush on his cheeks. "You're smart enough to realize waiting to be healed is generally considered a _bad idea_, aren't you?"

Her shoulders caved inward a little, drawing her hands from beneath his shirt and tugging them out of his grip. "What do you want me to say? Do you _want_ me to invite you into every little fight we get into? You have more to worry about. The clinic..."

"If you cared _that_ much about the clinic, you wouldn't have asked me to live with you."

"What are you _on_ about, Anders?" His eyes widened a little at the sharpness in her tone, though the tightness in his features faded into something relaxed, almost uncaring of her words. "Do you want to go back?" He shook his head, and her brows pinched upwards. "Is this about Merrill? Fenris? Sebastian?" Three more times, his head drifted side to side. "What is it, then?"

Sighing, his shoulders rolled back in a shrug. "It's nothing." Despite the more than obvious _something_ in his eyes and the deepened lines around his eyes, he managed a crooked smile. "Can we push past this little... whatever this is? Give me a kiss?"

Elena pursed her lips, shooting him a suspicious look. "I know better than to just let something like this go. What in the world is it, love?"

"I wish you'd trust me," he admitted, and her eyebrows shot up.

"Ah, so this is about that thing with the Grand Cleric."

His bottom lip twitched, bitten between his teeth. "Look, can we _not_ talk about this? I'd like to spend what time we have with you. Preferably in the throes of passion, but I could settle for a cuddle."

An unsure giggle bubbled out of her throat. "_Settle_ for a cuddle? Watch it, _mage_."

"Oooh, and just what are you going to do about it, hm?" He gave a hoarse laugh, flinching as her fingers slipped under his shirt again, this time scratching over his ribs. His hands pawed at her forearms, but he never tried very hard to push her away. "I've got heaps of energy left over from having sat around here all day."

"I'm sorry," Elena murmured, bending down until her hands were pressed flush against his chest and her lips hovered directly above his. Her lids grew heavy, and when she spoke, her words were tender. "Next time, I'll bring you with me. I promise. I was worried. The templars have been even more focused on bringing mages to the Circle. Even as Champion, I can't protect you. Not like I used to. You can hardly fault me for that, can you?"

Instead of answering her, he shut his eyes, a near-silent whimper caught in his throat as he tilted his face up to meet hers. She replied to his kiss with just enough pressure to split his lips apart, her own focusing on his top lip. Removing her hands from beneath his shirt, palms skimming over his warm flesh, she moved them atop the slightly coarse fabric instead, fingers threading into his hair before guiding him to sit up.

Their clothes were off with no manner of awkwardness or fumbling. After so many years spent getting her out of her armor and him out of his robes, this clothing was even more simple. But it wasn't just the clothing. They knew each other. How they moved, how they responded, what they liked. What took them nearly an hour during their first time now took moments. And neither of them would have it any other way.

Anders' mouth roamed over the column of her throat, sucking on the curve of it as he rested back against the pillows, arms wrapped tightly around her waist, guiding her to lean forward. She did, knees digging into the mattress as she rolled her hips backward and was awarded with a murmur and a moan from her lover.

As the years had passed, their relationship had its bumps. There were times when the sex was almost charged with their conflicted ideologies, love turning into a roughened struggle for the upper hand. And others, it was more of an embrace than anything else, barely doing more than shifting and rocking and murmuring breathlessly.

Tonight, it was a mix of the two. Elena's frustration and Anders' disappointment were obvious when they began, her hands seeking out his wrists to hold them above his head, his heels digging into the bed as he thrust upwards. But through it all, their eyes remained locked on the other's face. Eye contact broke when either of them was hit with a pang of pleasure, but their sights never left the features, lingering on his brow, her lips, his jaw, her chin.

And while the feelings bottled inside of them were intense - suspicion, anger, distrust, pleading - they found themselves shaking and flushed and exhausted once they were finished. Her chest came down to rest against his, her face leaning up into the curve of his neck, tongue flicking out experimentally to pull some of the sweat that had gathered on his skin into her mouth before kissing that very spot. His own lips met the top of her head in recompense for his lack of an explanation.

It wasn't enough. At the time, she considered it to be enough and simply leaned into the kiss, but it wasn't. Nothing he'd said or done up to that point would ever be enough to make up for what would happen, the rift that would form between them. No bridge could cross it. She could tell him that she loved him. He could shout over just how much he wanted to touch her again.

But it would never be as it was before.


End file.
